Open letter to the Indian Change Seekers

In recent weeks you have worked hard to make India a safer place. The recent Delhi gang-rape case dominated headlines and received world-wide attention, mainly due to your efforts. However, be mindful of certain worrisome negative aspects of this outrage. What you stand for is worthwhile, justified and necessary. However, the way you are going about it is not. You may create a lot of noise, but not the desired change. It is important to understand India first.

India, no matter what your Civics teacher told you, is not an equal country. India is divided into four classes with different levels of power. For simplicity, let us call these classes the Ones, Twos, Threes and Fours (deliberately avoiding upper-lower classification).

The Ones are our political masters. They control India, primarily through control over land, resources and laws that govern us. They don’t directly own assets, but control the asset owners, the Twos.

The Twos are our industrialists and capitalists. These Twos help secure and increase the power of the Ones. Business magazines honour them with terms like ‘the dynamic entrepreneurs of a new liberalized India’. While some may deserve such accolades, most don’t. Twos become big because they serve the Ones well. The Ones allow the Twos to become rich through limited competition and tightly regulated approvals. Real estate, mining, infrastructure or most other sectors, no company in India can thrive without support of the political class.

The next class, the Threes, are people like you and me, the primary readers of this newspaper. We are people with a certain amount of affluence and education, comprising around 10 per cent of India’s population. While life is a struggle for many Threes, they do have a basic standard of living and a modest access to opportunities. However, the Threes still do not get speedy justice, accountable leaders or a protective police force.

Notably, Threes have recently acquired a new media power. Threes are affluent and buy things advertisers want to sell. Hence, the media caters to Threes. The Threes dominate social media too. Whatever trends on social media, makes its way to the evening news. This power to dictate the news and influence public sentiment is real and substantial.

The Delhi gang rape victim was a Three, and the gruesome case made the rest of the Threes feel vulnerable like never before. The Threes wanted the rape to be debated. Hence, for almost a month little else could be discussed in a country of 1.2 billion people. However, in the process, the Threes might have done some damage. For despite the well-intentioned outcry, the Threes inadvertently displayed they care about themselves much more than another huge class they alienated, the Fours.

The Fours are the ninety of the country, people with limited education, abysmal standards of living and little hope for a better future. The Fours are our farmers, slum dwellers, domestic helpers and the hundreds of millions of Indians without proper healthcare, education and infrastructure. These Fours get no debates on TV. People won’t protest for them on India Gate.

The Threes either shun them, or impose their newfound modern values on them. For example, Fours may see women-men relationships in a regressive way, borne out by centuries of cultural indoctrination. The Threes, exposed to the latest Western beliefs, will mock them.

If you noticed the various debates and opinions on the case, the Threes only accepted ideas in line with their own liberal, modern value system. Nobody could dare say anything even slightly alternative or stress on the Indian reality without being ridiculed, mocked and being termed a perpetrator of rapes.

The Threes found a new power, but used it like the Ones and Twos use theirs — for self-serving purposes.

For will we ever passionately discuss the issues and lend our media power to issues that affect the Fours? Will we go to India Gate to help slum dwellers get proper drinking water, for instance? Did we care about the other Indians’ news in the past month?

As we alienate the Fours, we leave them open to be exploited by the Ones. The Ones echo the sentiments of the Fours and throw some scraps at them. In return, the Fours ignore the Ones’ misdeeds and bring them back to power. Meanwhile, we Threes keep screaming and watch our own self-created reality show.

This is no way to create a revolution, or even change. We have to take the grassroots Fours along. We cannot bully people into agreeing with our views. If we want people to change, we should not mock or deride. Instead listen and understand first and slowly nudge people towards change. Don’t just laugh at anyone who says women should cover up and not venture out at night. Suggest that while this old belief may come from a place of practical reality, this lets the perpetrators off the hook and so cannot be the primary solution. I am not saying these people are not regressive. However, if you want change, be inclusive.

Threes should also lend their media power to support issues affecting the Fours. India’s poor are a not separate species from us. They are Indians who deserve a better standard of living. If the politicians didn’t protect the Twos so much, we could open the economy further, truly liberalize and create a lot of opportunity.

Let us fight for the Fours too. They will join us, and make us a truly politically relevant force. This way, we will be able to take on the ultimate power abusers in India – the Ones and the Twos. And then, and only then is when true change will happen.